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Cream of Pea Soup

A creamy soup made from canned peas, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cream of Pea Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peas

  1. Drain the can of peas.

  2. Add cold water, salt, sugar, and parsley to the peas.

  3. Cook the mixture for 20 minutes.

  4. Remove the parsley.

  5. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Cream butter and flour together.

  2. Add hot milk and hot water, stirring constantly until smooth.

  3. Add the pressed peas to the mixture.

  4. Serve hot, straining before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Peas
Provide the main body, flavour and thickness of the soup once pressed through a sieve.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the milk and gives the soup a smooth, creamy body.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess, and helps the soup become smooth and velvety.

The step that matters

Add the hot liquids to the roux gradually while stirring constantly. Flour in a butter roux can clump if liquid is added too fast or not stirred. Constant stirring disperses the starch evenly, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of becoming lumpy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sugar, parsley, pepper, butter):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar, parsley, pepper, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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